One less steam engine in Poland

But which one?

Robert Dylewski, who has established his reputation as a doughty defender of the remaining stock of Polish steam locomotives, sent out an alert today that the Labedy steelworks in Gliwice have received a pile of steel scrap which is undoubtedly a recently cut up steam locomotive boiler.

Robert’s informant speculates that the steel comes from Ty45-6 which was stored at Kezdierzyna Kozla. As yet, this has still to be confirmed.

BTWT will report back on this story as further information reaches us. However, one thing is certain – as the new cold winds of the economic crisis blow ever stronger – the future of Poland’s ‘remainder steam stock’ (i.e. not allocated to specific museums) looks decidedly bleak.

Ty45-6 is still in Kędzierzyn as it used to, the boiler chunks ready to be fed into the Łabędy furnace could not have been bits of a Ty2 boiler, due to the construction and positioning of firebox stiffenings. So far no Ty45/Pt47 were reported missing – maybe a stationary boiler nobody knew about?